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Today’s China Readings June 5, 2012

"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

Sina Weibo was a social network of the absurd Monday. The censors were in full whack-a-mole mode, as the Wall Street Journal explains in China’s Online Firefighters Snuff Discussion on Tiananmen Anniversary. But instead of silencing discussion of June 4 the government reminded most Internet users of the ridiculousness of the attempts to erase this event from history, and in the process furthered damaged its credibility in the eyes of many of its most sophisticated, middle-class citizens.

Someday we will see a reevaluation of the official June 4 verdict, though the politics and families involved make such a move extremely complicated and unlikely to be made in the near future. Zhengming “争鸣”, a Hong Kong magazine that occasionally publishes accurate stories, reports that three vice-chairmen of the National People’s Congress recently submitted a proposal to the Politburo to change the official June 4 verdict (三名人大副委员长要求平反六四 意见上报政治局 via 明鏡新聞網). True or not, there are a lot of people who know that the verdict will change, but the complexity, especially in this political environment, is so great that no one should expect an imminent reversal. But political and legacy points can be scored by making such a proposal.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange either has ghosts in the machine, is vulnerable to hackers, or is easily manipulated. On June 4 the Shanghai Composite Index opened at 2346.98 (read the last four digits from right to left) and closed down 64.89 points. In June 4 crackdown remembered in China stock index, or chance? Reuters suggests these numbers are just a coincidence. If you believe that I have a Beijing bridge over a pristine river to sell you…

Yesterday’s numbers are a further reminder that the Chinese stock market is still not to be taken too seriously. This kind of blatant manipulation calls into question CSRC chief Guo Shuqing’s reform efforts (See Stars align for a long-awaited China stocks bounce-Reuters). Perhaps there will be an investigation, but one we may never hear about. One question to ask would be if anyone shorted the index Friday in anticipation? Speaking of sketchiness in the stock market, Caixin has a disturbing article about the practice of domestic IPO candidates paying off media outlets to ensure they report no bad news during the IPO process. In IPO有偿沉默 Caixin writes that the fees can run into the billions of RMB per year.

Caixin also reports on developments in the corruption investigation of Agricultural Bank of China executive Yang Kun. According to Caixin the Yang Kun case is linked to a Beijing property developer, the Dalian Shide Group and a sacked PLA general (Original Chinese: 杨琨牵连多宗案). Wang Yaohui, the developer of Beijing’s Solana mall, was a whale and “several sources in Macao’s financial sector…said Wang Yaohui owes Macao’s casinos 3 billion yuan due to gambling debts.” (Remember the earlier comments about Macao casino collection problems?) Yang Kun appears to have been no slouch, as “one person close to Yang said the central government’s investigators have found that he had “an enormous amount of assets” that cannot be accounted for by his salary.” Caixin would not waste time on this case unless it were big. As they say here, 北京水深 (Beijing waters run deep.)

Before we all despair, it is worth remembering that China has some amazing, selfless citizens. Last month Zhang Lili saved two of her students by jumping in front of a school bus, losing her legs in the rescue. And now China has a new revolutionary martyr. Wu Bin, a bus driver in Hangzhou, was hit by by a piece of metal that flew through his windshield as he was driving on the highway, but in spite of his mortal wounds he safely pulled over, saving 24 passengers, before collapsing. Both of these stories blew up on Weibo before official media took over, so consider them real heroes.

The best way to see this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still blocked here. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions are welcome, and feel free to forward to recommend to friends, as the more readers I have the better the content will become. And of course if you are feeling generous donations are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

if you need some help in China drop me a line//
Despite the scary headlines coming out of the world’s second-biggest economy, U.S. fund managers have invested $2.5 billion in Chinese stocks this year, following outflows of $2.6 billion in 2011, reports research firm EPFR Global. Meanwhile, international and global equity funds bumped their stakes in China and Hong Kong to 4.4% in the first quarter, on average, from 4% a year earlier, according to data from Lipper Inc.

I own Bona shares//
Chinese film distributor Bona Film Group Ltd. is in talks with four Hollywood studios about co-producing movies for international distribution, Bona’s chief executive said in an interview Sunday.

The health department of Northwest China’s Gansu province announced earlier this month, after a nine-day training course for its workers, that 41 of 47 practitioners had performed some of the fundamental tasks of the healthcare theory qiqong (Chinese breathing exercise). The 41 had successfully opened up their own “Conception Vessel” (ren mai) and “Governor Vessel” (du mai), according to a statement posted on the department’s website.

The government is drafting plans to address the potential consequences of a Greek exit from the eurozone as leading Chinese economists warned that such a scenario could plunge the global economy into a new recession.”The government is working on plans for the worst-case scenario of Greece leaving the eurozone later this year,” Wang Haifeng, director of international economics at the Institute for International Economic Research, under the National Development and Reform Commission, told China Daily

Gaokao in a few days//
Chinese police have busted more than 100 criminal gangs suspected of selling contents of major state-level exams and equipment used in cheating in these exams, according to a statement of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on Monday.

Five minor planets have been named after top Chinese scientists with the approval of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), according to a statement released Monday after a certificate awarding ceremony in Beijing.

Deliberately highlighting the military and security agenda, deploying more military forces and strengthening military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region are inappropriate, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Monday.

THOUGH a Facebook phone is still in the rumor stage, China’s dot-com giants aren’t wasting any time as they flood into the telecommunications sector with their own brands of mobile devices.A dozen or more mobile phones are on the market now sporting the names of almost all of China’s top Internet firms. Baidu, Qihoo 360, Tencent (QQ), Alibaba Shanda and NetEase are among those who either have unveiled mobile devices or plan to do so soon

A CHINESE bus driver has been conferred the honorary title of “revolutionary martyr” for sacrificing his own life to save 24 of his passengers.
Wu Bin, a 48-year-old bus driver from the eastern city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, died from his injuries last Friday, three days after a sheet of metal flew through the windshield of his bus while he was driving from Wuxi to Hangzhou.

A super-stealthy warship that could underpin the U.S. navy’s China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic “railguns” right out of a sci-fi movie.
But at more than $3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet. One outspoken admiral in China has scoffed that all it would take to sink the high-tech American ship is an armada of explosive-laden fishing boats.

fat chance//
Is it a coincidence that China’s most-watched stock index fell 64.89 points on the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on student-led democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square?
Most likely, say the experts.

Chongqing, China will subsidize purchases of vehicles made in the city as the first local government to offer such incentives since Premier Wen Jiabao said last month the economy faces increasing downward pressure.
Consumers would get as much as 3,000 yuan ($471) toward a vehicle, limited to those with engines displacing less than 1.6 liters

I use the service and like but hear it is losing lots of money. good luck getting an ipo of a money-losing chinese firm in a very crowded market segment done in this market//
Chinese online retailer Jingdong Mall is set to kick off its long-awaited initial public offering in September, and is to bring its filings to the U.S. SEC as soon as in June

Alibaba looks set to give consumers a choice of phone-maker for its Aliyun mobile OS, with China’s Haier (SHA:600690; HKG:1169) due to unveil its own Aliyun phone on Wednesday, according to invitations sent out to us and other media.Since the company launched its cloud-oriented software last summer, it has sold just over one million phones, all of them so far made by its initial hardware partner, Tianyu.

Chinese search giant Baidu has created an entire Nexus S ROM, replacing Google’s suite of services with its own. The ROM has been built to accompany Baidu’s cloud services push, and it allows mobile owners to fully ‘Baiduize’ their Android phone, giving them to access a range of the company’s web service

China will not like this opinion//
The conflict between the Philippines and China over the Scarborough Shoal may seem to be a minor dispute over an uninhabitable rock and the surrounding waters. But it is hugely important for future relations in the region because it showcases China’s stubborn view that the histories of the non-Han peoples whose lands border two-thirds of the South China Sea are irrelevant. The only history that matters is that written by the Chinese and interpreted by Beijing.

Western hacking collective Swagg Security has hacked the network of China Telecom, one of China’s biggest telecom providers and ISPs, and released more than 900 admin logins and passwords on The Pirate Bay, according to the collective

Sharma says his colleagues on Wall Street are not facing up to the fact that China’s rate of GDP growth is “naturally slowing down”. He does not believe that consumers are in a position to rebalance the economy. He argues that rebalancing will occur when China’s exports and investment come down and the GDP growth rate slows to about 6 per cent.The argument that China needs 8 per cent growth to maintain jobs growth and in turn social stability is wrong-headed as well.

Ling in the running for a PBSC seat, some trying to bring him down?//
a commentary from our sister newspaper Want Daily said that the rumors are likely fabrications intended to sully Ling’s name. Ling, the commentary said, has no reason to ally with Zhou, who is seen as a rival of his superior, Hu Jintao.

Chinese consumers may buy natural gas at more than five times current U.S. futures prices as the government eases control over domestic costs, opening the world’s biggest energy market to more overseas sellers.

Covec, a Chinese engineering group, hoped its construction of a highway in Poland would help to open the EU market. But its fumbles there raise questions of how ready China’s state-owned builders are to expand into the West.

This is not a parody from some Chinese comic fans or netizens who want to mock the Chinese government. This is a published comic book by Chi Wang and Jim Lai at Excel Comics. The Kindle version of Captain China volume 1 is already available for purchase at Amazon (link). According to its introduction on Amazon, Captain China is intended as “a propaganda-styled comic series aimed at capturing the main-stream consciousness of China. The stories will reflect and give insight to China’s current political stance, social environment, and cultural differences by blending complex characters, historical information, geographic locations, comic satire, and over-the-top explosive action

Ling Jihua, the right-hand man of Chinese President Hu Jintao who has been working alongside him for decades, is chief of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, among other titles. He was also responsible for the “Chongqing incident” — the scandal involving disgraced former Chongqing party head Bo Xilai — and directly executes orders from Hu, according to Tiexue, a website on China military news and history based in China.

In journalism schools from Guangdong Province in the south to Shanghai and Beijing, there is a desire to improve the quality of the education, which is why many foreign journalists are invited to teach…
In journalism schools from Guangdong Province in the south to Shanghai and Beijing, there is a desire to improve the quality of the education, which is why many foreign journalists are invited to teach.

On a Monday afternoon, Peter Arnett took his class of Chinese journalism students to the outskirts of the southern coastal city of Shantou, to a park dedicated to remembering the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

China may relax its property curbs to encourage end users to buy homes as the government seeks to support economic growth, according to Deutsche Bank AG.
More “fine-tuning” by local governments of real-estate tightening measures is expected because of continued weakness in land sales and the resulting financial pressures, Tony Tsang and Jason Ching, Hong Kong-based analysts at Deutsche Bank, said in a note to clients.

The best way to see this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still blocked here. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions are welcome, and feel free to forward to recommend to friends, as the more readers I have the better the content will become. And of course if you are feeling generous donations are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.